Henry Morton Stanley, c 1871

Henry Morton Stanley, c 1871. A carte-de-visite portrait of Henry Morton Stanley (John Rowlands) (1841-1904), published by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company in about 1871. Dr. Livingstone, I presume? Henry Stanley's famous words on finding the explorer alive and well in Central Africa in 1871. Commissioned by the New York Herald to find Livingstone, writer and explorer Stanley travelled extensively across Africa, regularly filing reports back to the newspaper. Later, his account of his arduous journey, 'How I Found Livingstone' (1872), became a bestseller. Stanley was knighted in 1899. A carte-de-visite is a photograph mounted on a piece of card the size of a formal visiting card of the 1850s - hence the name. The format was introduced by the French photographer Andre-Adolphe-Eugene Disderi (1819-1889) in 1854. As well as family portraits, commercial cartes of celebrities such as politicians, royalty and popular personalities were published. The craze for collecting celebrity cartes-de-visite in albums reached its peak during the 1860s but the format remained popular until the beginning of the twentieth century. The backs of cartes-de-visite were normally printed with the photographer's name and address. ©SSPL/National Media Museum